Michael Chabon - Maps and Legends - Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands

After abandoning work on his would-be second novel, and ending his first marriage to poet Lollie Groth, Chabon poured his frustrations into a new manuscript, about a writer struggling to complete a 2,611-page book after a string of previous successes. The novel, Wonder Boys (1995), was another bestseller and became a film of the same name in 2000, starring Michael Douglas, Frances McDormand, and Robert Downey, Jr. His story collections A Model World and Other Stories (1991) and Werewolves in Their Youth (1999) further displayed Chabon’s literary talents, but he cemented his place among the country’s foremost novelists with the publication of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay . The book, which chronicles the adventures of two Jewish cousins in New York City against the backdrop of World War II, earned Chabon a Pulitzer Prize, among other accolades. His subsequent novels include The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (2007), which also met with critical and commercial success and won the Nebula, Hugo, and Locus awards for science fiction, among other honors.

Chabon married the novelist Ayelet Waldman in 1993, and the couple has four children. Aside from narrative fiction, Chabon has worked as a screenwriter, helping with adaptations of his work and with movie projects such as Spider-Man 2 . He has also contributed essays to magazines such as Harper’s and the New Yorker . An outspoken proponent of genre fiction, Chabon published Maps and Legends , a collection of critical essays defending literature as a vehicle for entertainment, in 2008.

Chabon lives in Berkeley, California.

Index prepared by author

A | B | C | D | E

F | G | H | I | J

K | L | M | N | O

P | R | S | T

V | W | Z

Abelard, Peter, 2

Acker, Kathy, 9

Adams, Neal; 90, 129

Aickman, Robert, 13

Alexander, Lloyd, 20

The Book of Three. New York: Henry Holt, 2006.

Andersen, Hans Christian, 112

Asimov, Isaac, 9

Austen, Jane, 10

Auster, Paul, 9

Babel, Isaac, 153

Baker, Kyle, 90

Ballard, J.G., 87, 97, 136

Balzac, Honoré de, 7, 109

Baring-Gould, William, 43, 44

Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street. New York: Random House, 1995.

Bartel, Dennis, 134

Barthelme, Donald, 136, 177

Bender, Aimee, 13

Benford, Gregory, 177

Across the Sea of Suns. New York: Warner, 2004.

Timescape. New York: Bantam, 1992. Benjamin, Walter, 11

“The Storyteller.” Selected Writings , Vol. 3, 1935–1938. Trans. Edmund Jephcott, Howard Eiland, et al. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006

Bester, Alfred, 86–88

The Demolished Man . New York: Vintage, 1996

The Stars of My Destination. New York: Vintage, 1996

Blackwood, Algernon, 110

Blake, William, 71

Blume, Judy, 192

Borges, Jorge Luis, 13, 117, 124, 136

Bradbury, Ray, 141, 176

Brookner, Anita, 13

Brooks, Peter, 34

Reading for the Plot. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Brunner, John, 87

Buchan, John, 65

Buckler, Rich, 87

Buckler, Rich and Doug Moench.

Astonishing Tales Featuring Deathlok the Demolisher! #25 (Aug. 1974), Marvel Comics.

Burroughs, Edgar Rice, 38

Burroughs, William S., 87

Byatt, A.S., 13

Byrne, John, 83

Calvino, Italo, 13, 136, 142

Invisible Cities. Trans. William Weaver. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978.

Caniff, Milton, 89

Capp, Al, 90

Carlyle, Thomas, 29

Carter, Angela, 11

Cervantes, Miguel de, 27, 40

Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Ecco, 2003.

Chabon, Michael, 130, 139, 146, 149, 150, 154, 178, 193, 209

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay. New York: Picador, 2000.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.

Wonder Boys. New York: Random House, 2008.

The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Chandler, Raymond, 7, 9, 33, 38, 56, 92, 176, 177

“The King in Yellow.” Collected Stories. New York: Knopf, 2002.

The Long Goodbye. New York: Vintage, 1988.

Chaykin, Howard, 85–93

American Flagg! Berkeley: Image Comics, 2008.

Ironwolf #l (1986), DC Comics.

The Scorpion #1 (Feb. 1975), Atlas Comics.

Cheever, John, 7

Chekhov, Anton, 120

Cheuse, Alan, 98

Christopher, John, 97

No Blade of Grass. New York: Avon, 1986.

Claremont, Chris, 83

Clarke, Arthur C., 91

Clute, John, 56

Colby, C. B. (Joseph Adler, Victor Fischer), 192–199, 202–205, 207, 209

Strangely Enough! New York: Scholastic, 1963.

Collier, John, 97

Tom’s A-Cold. London: Macmillan, 1933.

Conrad, Joseph, 7, 18, 37

The Heart of Darkness. n ew York: Norton, 2005.

Cooper, James Fenimore, 56

Cooper, Susan, 67

The Dark Is Rising. New York: Simon Pulse, 2007.

Coover, Robert, 153

The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. New York: New American Library, 1971.

Coppard, Alfred Edgar, 7

Crowley, John, 13

d’Aulaire, Edgar Parin and Ingri, 47–51, 53

D’Aulaires’ Book of Norse Myths. New York: New York Review Books, 2005.

Defoe, Daniel, 104, 105

Robinson Crusoe. New York: Penguin, 2003.

Dent, Lester, 189

Doc Savage Magazine #1 (Mar. 1933), Street and Smith.

Dick, Philip K., 87, 88

Dickens, Charles, 29, 119

Bleak House. New York: Penguin, 2003.

The Old Curiosity Shop. New York: Knopf, 1995.

Ditko, Steve, 126, 129

Doyle, Arthur Conan, 23, 24, 26–44, 65, 158, 176, 190, 191

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Scholastic, 2004.

The Lost World. New York: Penguin, 2008.

The Return of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Penguin, 1982.

The Sign of Four. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 2005.

A Study in Scarlet. Stilwell, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 2005.

Eisner, Will, 76, 126, 129–132

Blackhawk Archives , Vol. 1. New York: DC Comics, 2001.

Doll Man #1 (1941–1953), Quality Comics, 47

Eliot, T.S., 41

Ellison, Harlan, 87

Farmer, Philip José, 176, 188–190

Tarzan Alive: A Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.

Faulkner, William, 7, 21, 56, 106, 137, 176

Absalom, Absalom! New York: Vintage, 1990.

Feiffer, Jules, 129

The Great Comic Book Heroes. New York: Dial Press, 1965.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 9, 21, 139–141, 177

“Crazy Sunday.” The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Scribner, 1998.

The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 1999.

Flaubert, Gustave, 2, 31, 129

Madame Bovary. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Fowles, John, 13

Franzen, Jonathan, 56

Freud, Sigmund, 26, 29, 44

Frost, Robert, 21

Gaiman, Neil, 3

The Sandman. New York: DC Comics, 1991.

Gale, Dorothy, 57

Gerber, Steve, 87, 129

Gibbons, Dave, 77, 91

Moore, Alan and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 2005.

Gibson, Walter Brown, 92

Dent, Lester and Walter Brown Gibson. The Shadow. Encinitas, CA: Nostalgia Ventures, 2006.

Graves, Robert, 7

Greene, Graham, 4

Hall, Oakley, 134

Hamilton, Edmond, 81, 83